On May 16, the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee approved, 19-0, a bill (S. 1256) to reauthorize the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) 7(a) loan, 504 loan, and microloan programs. The House passed a similar measure (H.R. 1332), the Small Business Lending Improvement Act, on April 25 (see The Source, 4/27/07). However, unlike H.R. 1332, S. 1256 does not contain a provision to make permanent a pilot program to provide loans of $250,000 or less to majority women-owned businesses.
Sponsored by Chair John Kerry (D-MA), S. 1256 would authorize $87 billion for the programs: $60 billion for the 7(a) loan program SBA’s most basic and commonly used loan program and $27 billion for the 504 loan program SBA’s long-term, fixed-rate loans for large capital purchases. The bill also would increase the maximum loan available to small businesses from $2 million to $3 million, allow community-based intermediaries to make revolving microloans to small businesses, authorize $5 million annually for FY2007-2010 to create an Office of Minority Business Development, and create a non-profit child care lending pilot program in several states.
